Video: Stark Aerospace Now Producing ‘Arrow Lite’ UAV’s

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) — At Stark Aerospace’s Columbus facility, workers are building a new type of plane and leading the way in military technology.

“We’re in the middle of producing and testing a new product that we have offered for our government contract. And that is a small UAV called ” Arrow-Lite,” a 6 1/2 pound device that has over 2 hours and 45 minutes of flight time available. It’s infrared so it can see in the dark. It can help our troops with surveillance. And so we have night vision and day vision,” said Tom Ronaldi, Golden Triangle Unit at Stark Aerospace.

The “Arrow-Lite” can fly places inaccessible or dangerous for soldiers. Not only that, it’s completely silent and travels like a bird, making it hard for enemies to catch.

“It’s single man operable. So it’s 25 pounds and one person can deploy it in about 90 seconds. This is the 1st product that’s designed and developed by Stark Aerospace. So we’re really excited and our team’s very excited because the initial response we’ve got from the government has been very positive,” said Ronaldi.

The company’s delivered 39 UAV’s this year and will be used globally by the U.S. Government. Leaders say the positive feedback gives Columbus’s facility and its 40 workers a great reputation.

” We’ve hired every skill set from maintenance to assembly up to pilots to fly the aircraft and to do training and how we’ve got a team down at Camp Shelby right now doing training on this particular product, so it’s exciting,” said Ronaldi.

Stark Aerospace, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace industries, has two facilities in Mississippi.

About

WCBI – TV was the first television station in North Mississippi. The station began its regular operations on July 13, 1956 under the ownership of Birney Imes, Jr. WCBI was first housed in a group of cement block buildings in a pasture east of Columbus on Highway 12